SOURCE: Martin, Robert A. “The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.” South Atlantic Review 61, no. 4 (fall 1996): 97-106.

In the following essay, Martin explores the elements of classical tragedy in Death of a Salesman, arguing that Willy Loman becomes a tragic figure through “his desire and willingness ‘to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity.’”

What the performance of a play gives an audience is less a set of ideas, propositions, or abstractions about life and how to live it than what Arthur Miller has called a “felt experience,” the imaginative sharing and participation in the lives and actions of imaginary characters. The performance is mythic; our sensibilities are enlivened by imaginary characters and we become engaged in their conflicts. Our thoughts and emotions are never so detached from theirs that we can remain “objective” in our feelings for them and in our judgments...